It's new to me: Ys: Memories of Celceta

It took a couple of decades, but Nihon Falcom finally made their own version of Ys IV, and it's great.

This column is “It’s new to me,” in which I’ll play a game I’ve never played before — of which there are still many despite my habits — and then write up my thoughts on the title, hopefully while doing existing fans justice. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Is a game that released in 2013 considered retro in 2021? Unless it was specifically created to feel retro, maybe that’s a little too soon for the designation, but Ys: Memories of Celceta has a few things working for it. For one, it’s a remake of a game from 20 years before then. Well, it’s actually a remake of two games from 20 years before then, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The point is that we can avoid a protracted discussion of when is a game retro and instead just talk about how Memories of Celceta is great.

It might not be Oath in Felghana-level great, but there aren’t many action RPGs around that are. Memories of Celceta, which is a remake of two classic-style, bump-combat Ys games that instead uses the team-based, multi-character format of Ys Seven, is great in its own way.

Let’s talk about the game’s origins. The first three Ys games were all developed for Japanese PCs like the PC-8801 by Nihon Falcom, with ports of those titles on consoles coming from other companies. Alfa Systems, for instance, paired up and enhanced Ys I and Ys II into a Turbografx CD release that included new, Red Book Audio arrangements of the soundtrack originally composed by Yuzo Koshiro, for Hudson Soft, whose consoles they worked exclusively on in their early days. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys also got a Turbografx CD release from Alfa Systems (and published once again by Hudson Soft), but so too did the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo, with Tonkin House handling development and publishing duties there.

Promotional art for Memories of Celceta,featuring the game’s playable characters. Image credit: Tasta

After Ys III, Nihon Falcom underwent some staffing changes. Significant ones. The developer and publisher lost a number of key people in a way that impacted series like Dragon Slayer — Dragon Slayer was an action RPG series that preceded even Ys, which lives on today well over three decades in the form of multiple spinoff series that you might better know the name of: Legend of Heroes, Xanadu, and the subseries of Legend of Heroes, Trails [in the Sky, of Cold Steel, etc.] — and Ys itself. Dragon Slayer’s creator, Yoshio Kiya, left Falcom for another developer, Nihon Application, while the bulk of the rest of the departed staff went on to form Quintet, the creators of classics like ActRaiser, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma.

Obviously, losing the person who had a hand in the creation of Nihon Falcom’s earliest enduring classics was a significant blow, as was the departure of the kinds of developers who could go on to make the level of games that Quintet did — especially since two of those Quintet staff were Masaya Hashimoto and Tomoyoshi Miyazaki, the creators of Ys. So, when it was time to develop another entry in the highly successful Ys franchise, Nihon Falcom instead licensed development of it out elsewhere because they simply did not have the staff on hand to make it happen. They still had a major hand in the creation of Ys IV, of course, given it was their property and one they needed to take care of, but their involvement was in two key places: a story scenario and the characters that needed to be in said scenario, and the music for the game.

Hudson got the license for Ys IV and the materials Falcom sent along with it, and not only published the game, but developed it, too. This would be a Japanese-exclusive game, meaning, it was a PC Engine CD game, not a Turbografx CD one. Similarly, Tonkin House, given their familiarity with the Super Famicom hardware and their ability to both develop and publish a la Hudson, got the license to develop Ys IV as well. Like with Hudson’s edition of Ys IV, this too would stay exclusive to Japan: Memories of Celceta ended up being the first international release of the game, as both editions of IV, as well as Ys V, didn’t make it outside of Japan — the series as a whole was dormant in North America in between 1992 and 2005.

At another time, I’ll write up the differences between Hudson’s effort and that of Tonkin House — just like I played both Wanderers from Ys and The Oath in Felghana, I will be playing all three versions of Ys IV — but for now, it’s enough to know that Hudson veered far enough off of the story scenario setup by Nihon Falcom that it was Tonkin House’s Super Famicom version of the game that was considered the canonical Ys IV. Which — and this is secondhand, given I haven’t played through either yet — was a perplexing choice since Hudson’s version of Ys IV, subtitled “Dawn of Ys,” is considered the clearly superior game. Falcom preferred Tonkin House’s version, “Mask of the Sun,” so that was canon.

Until Memories of Celceta, 20 years later, became Falcom’s first internally developed version of Ys IV, anyway. Which was done not just by borrowing the systems of Ys Seven in the same way its predecessor The Oath in Felghana was developed using the gameplay of Ys Origins and Ys VI, but also by splicing story and characters from Mask of the Sun and Dawn of Ys together into something that was as different from both of them as they were from each other. Memories of Celceta’s story features Adol Christin, having lost his memories after journeying into the Great Forest, attempting to remember who he is, what he saw in the forest, and why he lost his memories to begin with. While doing this, he’s tasked with charting the otherwise off-limits Great Forest for the Romun Empire — yes, that name is extremely intentional, as you will discover when you see the other names we’re working with here. Complications arise, whole unknown towns are discovered in the middle of this forest, and also a god ends up involved. Ys gonna Ys.

Let’s talk about the soundtrack for a second. It’s the part that’s the most unchanged from the original game(s), other than the fact that its arrangements produced on much different hardware (first on the Playstation Vita and then the Playstation 4 seven years later, rather than the PC Engine CD and Super Famicom). The music is a wonderful listen, which is just a thing that happens in Ys titles/games by Nihon Falcom, but it also works so well for Ys’ whole deal in particular: Ys is a series of action RPGs where the music is pushing you ever-forward, where pulsing drums and guitars merge with violins, pianos, synths, and more to produce an energy that compels you onward. Take In The Fires of Ignition, for instance:

That song rips, and you’re busy fending off attacks and countering with your own while it does all that ripping. I can’t put a figure on how much better of a game Memories of Celceta is because of songs like this one and the purpose they successfully serve, but I know that it is better because of them. Failure to put together a soundtrack that will create that feeling in the player, logically, would mean a lesser game — hell, when Memories of Celceta’s early game was a little sloggier since combat hadn’t fully opened up yet to feel smooth and rewarding, it was the music that kept me feeling good. Why do you think Falcom composed the music for Ys IV even when they otherwise weren’t going to code a single piece of either version of the game? Because they get the importance of music to all of these endeavors, and wanted to ensure that at least that part was done correctly.

Memories of Celceta’s soundtrack, which is comprised of new arrangements from the original Ys IV(s), manages to keep players really feeling the necessary vibes, even in the switch from bump combat to a more traditional button-based hack-and-slash setup. The more subdued songs, with string arrangements or a focus on mood-setting drums and synths, are certainly lovely, but the most consistent successes in the soundtrack are those driving tracks, where the drums are leading the charge for guitar solos and violins and synthesizers to tear through the song like Adol Christin’s sword through his foes. I don’t know who originated the idea of synths and electric guitars and violins and pianos all living together in harmony, but I want to kiss them on the lips.

Regardless of who got this all started in music in general, it’s pretty clear, from listening to songs like Prelude to Truth, how much of a debt the JRPG landscape owes, sonically speaking, to Nihon Falcom’s 1980s and 1990s composers.

Combat doesn’t just feel good because of how the music compels you to feel during it, of course. As said, it feels a little weak when it’s early in the game and you basically just have two dudes, one with a sword and one with a punch, and neither has much in the way of skills or strategy to deploy. As you add more characters with more of a variety of weapons, though, and add in more and stronger skills to your repertoire — skills level up through use, and you can equip four per character at any time — well, then things not only get interesting, but they feel good, they feel seamless, and it becomes oh so easy to keep on playing. It took me some time to get acclimated and play Memories of Celceta for more than just small bursts, but as the combat opened up and began to feel right, I couldn’t put it down, and was only stopping because it was already two in the morning or my kids had woken up from their naps and required tribute (television).

The platforming elements from Oath in Felghana, Origins, and Ys VI are no more, but that’s probably mostly because you have plenty to deal with switching between three characters at a time, out of six total (the five other than series protagonist Adol are from the previous versions of Ys IV, although, here they’re in roles of far more narrative and participatory importance than they ever were there). Putting skill jumps and hidden passages and such on top of that is maybe just a little too much to focus on. That being said, you don’t just run straight through the game. There are specific artifacts that grant you different powers (one that shrinks you down, one that makes it so you can run faster and even up certain walls, one that lets you breathe and swim underwater) and you will need to be switching back-and-forth on those to progress. Having to balance pushing forward with stopping to heal is present, and just like in Ys III, you can’t heal simply by standing still when inside of a dungeon, not until you collect a specific artifact that will allow that.

There are also a number of items that help you learn skills faster , or gain more experience, or convert gold into experience, and so on, that you will have to figure out how to deploy and distribute. Luckily, even the three characters who aren’t in your active battle party gain XP from your fighting, so you don’t need to worry so much about constantly switching them out or anything. And since it is a Ys game, the balance is all in order, meaning grinding is more of an optional thing than something you’ll be forced to do. Just don’t constantly run away from encounters, and you should be fine on the leveling front.

Memories of Celceta’s menu, with three playable characters and a whole lot of gold visible. Image credit: GOG

You control just one of your three active party members at a time, and can either do so by deciding to use whichever one you like the most for their skills, their weapon type, whatever, or you can switch back-and-forth depending on which enemies you are facing and their weaknesses. Adol’s sword causes slash damage, which works well against fleshier monsters, while pierce damage works better against flying enemies, and strike damage is great for softening up armored foes. You will get two characters for each damage type, and while you’re limited at first by the characters the game’s story makes you use, later on, you can choose who is active and who is on the sidelines, and setup your party to either have two of the same damage type, earning a damage bonus, or you can do one of each, increasing the quality of item drops.

If you don’t personally feel like taking control over Duren so you can punch something armored very hard and repeatedly, you can press up on the right analog stick to make your AI-controlled party members focus on attacking, and he’ll do it for you while you do whatever it is you want to do with your character of choice. The other option is to set your teammates to evade, which there aren’t a ton of opportunities for unless their health is low and you want them to avoid dying, but it’s still nice to have that option when you do need it. Generally, they’re pretty good at avoiding damage, of picking their targets, and of picking up dropped items and gold: they tended to die on the same kind of major, screen-covering attacks I myself failed to avoid, so I can’t really fault them for it.

Speaking of avoiding, you can either try to dodge an attack at the last second, giving you a moment to wail on your enemies as time seems to slow down, or attempt a last-second guard to block the damage. Figuring out which you need to use in which situations is worthwhile, especially since you can even block or dodge attacks from the game’s very last boss fights. You might need the extra seconds successfully avoiding an attack buys you, especially if your foe is gearing up for their major, you-will-probably-die offensives. It all just feels so satisfying when it clicks together — the damage types, the music driving you forward, the dodging, the guarding, setting up huge area-of-effect skill attacks to finish off groups of enemies. So very Ys.

Basically every complaint I had about Memories of Celceta’s design was eventually rectified through progression or an item. There is a bit too much backtracking at first, and enemies are so much weaker than you that you don’t benefit from engaging with them any more, but they’re also so aggressive that it’s sometimes hard not to do that, anyway. You’ll later be able to warp with more freedom and to more places, which cuts into the backtracking, and you’ll also be able to run around faster once you get that artifact, so even the on-the-ground travel is less annoying. If you get through this early portion of the game without too much concern, you’re going to love the rest of it.

While North America never received — and still has not received in any official capacity — releases for either version of Ys IV, Memories of Celceta came out on the Vita in 2013, and seven years later arrived on the Playstation 4. It is now the official canon version of Ys IV, if you care about that sort of thing for a more streamlined playthrough of the Ys timeline than the one I’ve assigned myself. And you can still get it with ease, as it’s on the Playstation Store for both of those systems — Falcom’s titles are often on sale, too, which is how I purchased Memories of Celceta earlier this year. If you’re a console gamer without a Vita looking for a place to start playing Ys, you could do worse than Memories of Celceta. And considering the game is meant to be played more than once on multiple difficulties, and there is a whole lot of weapon and armor customization and exploring to do, well, you could do a lot worse than $30, too.

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